A PCB shot of the upcoming ASUS ROG Ares dual GPU graphics accelerator made it to the media this day. The picture reveals what could be a very complex single-PCB dual-GPU board, with perhaps the strongest VRM to drive the CrossFire-on-board setup. The ROG Ares uses two AMD Cypress GPUs that run at high clock speeds, with even more overclocking potential on offer. The picture reveals that ASUS has made extensive use of digital PWM circuitry, giving each GPU a 4-phase vGPU, 2-phase vMem, and uncore phases. Each zone has its own voltage controller. Power is drawn in from three inputs: two 8-pin and a 6-pin, though the tracks show that the PCB is capable of using three 8-pin inputs. At source, the inputs are fused as a surge-protective measure.

Each GPU is wired to 16 GDDR5 memory chips, 8 on each side of the PCB. The PCB itself is roughly an inch taller than full-height addon-cards. Display connectivity includes one each of DVI-D, DisplayPort, and HDMI connectors. The lone CrossFire finger provides CrossFireX support with another Ares card - or probably other Radeon HD 5800 series products. ASUS in a statement says that all heat-producing components other than the GPU - VRM chips and memory - will be cooled by a copper heatspreader that covers almost all such components. Each VRM chip gets its own copper heatsink. These parts will be anodized in red for the black+red livery characteristic to the ROG series. Earlier, a CAD drawing of the cooling assembly made news.

So a total of 450w available to the card, 525w if they changed to 3x8-pins...

I really can't see that as being for anything other than show(not uncommon for the graphics card industry). A standard HD5970 only pulls 300w maximum, I can't see this card pulling an extra 150w, certainly not an extra 225w. I have full confidence that this card could have managed with just two 8-pins.

So a total of 450w available to the card, 525w if they changed to 3x8-pins...

I really can't see that as being for anything other than show(not uncommon for the graphics card industry). A standard HD5970 only pulls 300w maximum, I can't see this card pulling an extra 150w, certainly not an extra 225w. I have full confidence that this card could have managed with just two 8-pins.

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They want headroom for overclocking, that means... they may require a dual 8 p+6p to advertise that to stay whitin specs..

Me myself have ran 2x 4870x2 with a 4ghz quad on a single 750 W single rail, 1kw psu for this card, not at all.

No this is a re thought, over power beast, ready to destroy a HD 5970.

Probably cherry picked HD 5870 Gpu'z are going to roll with this, Its going to have silly cooling, probably ready for really high voltage, will probably be able to do 1000-1050Mhz on the cores, and 1200+Mhz on the memory, have 4gb of onboard memory instead of 2gb of onboard vram- Its going to be a 3 sloted, fat piece of dx11 priced at silly rates.

Its going to do something right at least, and for the 2gb dedicated to each card, will make even 30 inch 4,000,000+ pixel monitors feel like kids play. Silly card it will be, and they need all the power you can plug in.